


As Cold As Gold

by 9_miho



Series: Seven Made One [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Anthropomorphic Personifications, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-19
Updated: 2014-11-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 05:52:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2640482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/9_miho/pseuds/9_miho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had looked at him with her enormous eyes and later, he knew about drowning in a woman’s eyes. Apple blossoms settled on and in her curls of dark hair. She was too lovely in decorations more delicate than pearls. She had looked at him and who knew what she saw. He had been on his gray horse, the two of them gawky and young and dusty. Then she had fled through the trees before he could call to her.</p><p>That was his first memory of seeing the Reach, another one just like him, someone human and yet more than human and yet less than human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As Cold As Gold

If he closed his eyes, the Westerlands could remember the first time he had seen her.

She had been a girl first, naked as the day she was born (or were they born naked, like humans or did they come to life in swaddling and tunics?) and at ease with her nakedness in a grove of apple trees. But her black, black hair had trailed down her back like a fall of silk or a mantle, affording her some sort of modesty. She had looked at him with her enormous eyes and later, he knew about drowning in a woman’s eyes. Apple blossoms settled on and in her curls of dark hair. She was too lovely in decorations more delicate than pearls. She had looked at him and who knew what she saw. He had been on his gray horse, the two of them gawky and young and dusty. Then she had fled through the trees before he could call to her.

That was his first memory of seeing the Reach, another one just like him, someone human and yet more than human and yet less than human.

If he closed his eyes again, he could remember the next time he had seen her.

She had been older, but not quite that much older. No breasts budded yet but she did not run about heedlessly naked. She wore a simple smock of pale green and went barefoot, however. Her hair had been tied into a single dark braid. She had given him a grave curtsey, poured him a cup of wine. And she had said nothing at all to him.

He was no stranger to lust by then. He had seen how animals rutted and he heard the men and their talk. Weddings had provided their own gleeful perversions of lessons and he stayed awake at nights, unsure and curious about the heat at his groin. But he learned by tumbling with mortal women, whose lives passed as quickly as apple blossoms and passed away on the winds.

As he grew, the Westerlands learned to sing and he learned to play and it was in music that he lured her to him. The Reach spoke little to him but her head tilted at him as his fingers danced across strings of silver upon a frame of gold. Silently, she sat by him and seemed content to listen, her eyes closing lazily and slowly but never fully shutting. If he reached to touch her, disrupted a melody for a single moment, she would rise and flee and he would never catch her. So he sat and played and watched.

Eventually, the Reach would rise up and start to dance to his music, her hair flying free from its demure braid. The hem of her skirt rose and floated and her sleeves fluttered. And he could only watch her, never touch, never hold. But she would then smile at him, fleeting and soft and without promise or lies.

Winter came and she wore heavy damask and she brooded over the dead branches of her beloved plants. In the damp halls of tapestry and stone, she slowly withered and sweetened. But in her was a memory of summer and spring, in her mismatched eyes, one the blue of heavens and one the green of grass, in her apple blossom skin, and in the perfume of her long, long hair. It was there that men hungered for her the most.

It was innocent, at least initially. She danced with them genteelly in rounds and quadrilles and lines. But as the drink flowed and the night lingered, so do other hungers grew. He was in the musician’s gallery, but at its front and he sang and played for them. By this time there were songs of his own singing, of his voice and harp, songs that others sang and did not realize where they came. And all he could do was watch her in that shifting sea of human and cloth and dead memories of summer.

There were teasing brushes, the occasional lingering embrace. She laughed when she could but she sought to escape. And in the shadows by the wall, almost unseen, one great Lord had her by the wrist and-

The Westerlands interfered, harp dangling almost carelessly from his hand. He took her by the hand and he silenced the Lord with a look. And by this time, the golden-haired boy was a man, tall and broad shouldered and laughing. But no mirth shone in his eyes and his mouth only gaped in a lion’s grimace. And he escorted the Reach away, as stiffly proper as a knight in a tale.

She took him to her chamber, a world of frozen summer, and she looked at him sidelong with her mismatched eyes. In her room, flowers bloomed silently and without scent along the walls. Her bed was hung with strings of dried roses, their petals turning brown and black, and bundles of apples studded with spices.

“You want payment,” she said and her voice almost made him shiver to hear. It was the sound of warm rains and the scent of ripening fruit, sweet and clear and with curious depth. Her voice made his music nothing to his ears.

“Not payment,” he replied.

“Then what?”

He touched her cheek softly, cautiously and almost expected her to flinch away from his fingers. But she did not. She merely met his gaze with childish solemnity. He bent to kiss her and her mouth was almost too sweet to bear.

That night, he took her maidenhead but no blood-stained banner would celebrate that event for them. And it was best that way.

Before he left across a spotless white landscape, he clasped a chain of gold roses around her neck, a chain he had made many years before with the thought of giving it to her (so many discarded attempts left smashed and crumpled in his little smithy). Each petal he had hammered himself and cooled with his fervent breath, each interspersed leaf sprig fastened from a single brilliant green stone. She touched the rich, kingly gift and met his eyes.

“Roses that will never wither,” he jibed gently at her. She made no movement to take the necklace from her throat but she replied, slowly, “I would rather prefer real roses.”

When he bent to kiss her, he felt as if her breath had turned colder than winter’s bite, her flesh chillier than snow.

Later, when in his cups, he liked to sing, “Hands of gold/are always cold/ but a woman’s hands/ are warm.” His mouth always twisted in a rather peculiar way when he heard that little tune sung by other tongues.

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea how I ended up making the Westerlands a more artistic Jaime - or perhaps the worst and best parts of Jaime and Tyrion in the same individual? Poetic, dedicated, easily besotted, single-minded and quite prone to bitterness when their dreams are dashed by reality... And yes, in my mind's eye, the Westerlands looks a lot like Jaime's darker-eyed brother, though a little lankier, a slightly different muscle group distribution from being more of a smith than a fighter. And with very pretty hands as he's a musician.


End file.
